My somewhat uncharitable take is as follows:
I distinguish between liberals and progressives. I'm not referring to people who have this or that policy difference with the administration. Nor do I mean those who have a visceral dislike of GWB. I don't even mean, despite their utter moral silliness, those types of libs who refuse to believe that we even have any enemies, that our "enemies" are really only disgruntled people whom we haven't yet given enough foreign aid.
By "progressives", I mean those people who think America is the scourge of the world, that 9/11 was the chickens coming home to roost, that the WTC leapers were all little eichmanns, except maybe for the food service staff--and who charge an ungodly sum of money to inculcate this sewage in our children at university each year.
People who wave signs saying "We support our troops when they shoot their officers" and "Support our mutineers; free Sgt. Akbar".
People for whom no national emergency will ever be severe enough to induce them to lay aside their differences and make common cause with those bourgeois earth-rapers, their fellow Americans.
People whose response to 9/11 is to print screeds in The Nation and such, defiantly ticking off America's defects all the more stridently than before.
Because not to do so, to instead admit that their beloved United Nations is full of evil slithering filth and the hated Bush administration is the best force for good in counterpart, would make their heads explode.
Such people exist, in not insignificant numbers, and they call themselves progressives. So, so do I.
Just a gut reaction, provoked by skimming the results of a search for "progressives" in FT's search box...
Progressive: favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideals; promoting change or innovation.
ReplyDeleteI love my country, but I fear my current government. I fear the direction they are taking our country, taking from the have-nots and giving to the haves, favoring corporations over individuals. Taking away liberties claiming to make us more secure; in reality we are no safer than before 9/11 except at the airports where the only upgraded security implemented is visible by making us take off our shoes and surrendering our nail clippers. The ports are not safer, our borders are not patrolled any better, everything that needs to be done is either ignored or done on the cheap, because that is the corporate model this administration follows.
Dictionary definitions make for ready retorts, but you know they do go out of date sometimes. I think my definition is more current.
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